Marvin Gaye

Yesterday (March 10, 2015), a verdict came in the closely watched copyright infringement lawsuit brought by the family of late soul singer Marvin Gaye against the creators of the monster hit “Blurred Lines.” A jury found defendants Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke liable and a judge awarded Gaye’s children a reported $7.4 million in damages.

Since the news broke, there has been a flurry of commentary about what the verdict means for copyright law, particularly whether the jury’s decision will lead to an uptick in lawsuits around songs that are similar in “feel” to an existing composition. read more

It’s happening again: another contemporary hitmaker is involved in a lawsuit with the estate of a well-loved musician over alleged unauthorized use of elements of the latter’s past work. In this case, the issue is Robin Thicke’s 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” and the Gaye family’s claim that the song illegally appropriates elements from Marvin Gaye’s #1 hit “Got to Give it Up,” released in 1977. After more than a year of legal wrangling, it now appears that the dispute may be one of the rare infringement cases that makes it to trial. But there’s a surprising wrinkle: in the course of litigating this dispute, Thicke may have let slip one of the music business’s more troubling open secrets.